In 2016, at the World Humanitarian Summit, all the big players in the international humanitarian aid system, committed to ‘better support and reinforce national and local actors’. Since then, the roles and behaviours of notably international aid agencies, acting as ‘intermediaries’, have come under closer review.
‘Intermediary’ aid organisations are those that pass on part or all of the funding they receive from a ‘back-donor’ (typically a bilateral or multilateral, but this can also be a foundation or a corporate sponsor) to a local or national actor (mostly governmental, non-governmental or community-based). The ‘intermediation’ role therefore is fundamentally related to the flow of funding.
In the current global aid system, most intermediaries are international entities such as UN agencies, INGOs, international financial institutions, donor Red Cross societies, Western research, training and consultancy outfits, and Western for-profit contractors. This also includes pooled funds, managed by the UN or by others. But there are also national agencies acting as intermediaries who subgrant to more local ones and/or directly to target groups. Examples are the Manusher Jonno Foundation in Bangladesh; larger Myanmar NGOs who in 2022 came together in a Local Intermediary Actor Network, and in future perhaps, the National Network for Local Philanthropy Development in Ukraine (initially co-hosting a fund together with the Start Network).
This briefing paper looks at why ‘back-donors’ use them. It unpacks how intermediaries can add value but can also abuse their power over national and local actors they sub-grant to. Abusive behaviour can come from specific individuals, but unjust practices can be more structurally embedded in how an organisation sees its intermediation role, and its wider organisational culture and self-image. Organisations playing intermediary roles now can and must reflect self-critically about how they choose to play that role. Find the first paper here.
A next briefing paper will offer practical guidance for the conversations back-donors can and must have with those they fund in intermediary roles.